So, How Are Those Socialist Policies Working Out In Brazil?

Brazilians have been living under the rule of the progressive Workers Party for quite a while now. So, how are those socialist policies working out? If the recent spate of massive protests are any guide, not very well. And it all sounds so very familiar.

What started as a protest against a 9-cent fare hike on public transport fireballed into a gigantic public protest against political corruption, high taxes and lousy public services — and the government itself.

Protesters stormed state legislatures and set at least one on fire. The capital was stormed as well, and President Dilma Rousseff canceled her trip to Japan to call an emergency meeting with her Cabinet.

The New York Times reported that Brazil’s leftist ruling Workers Party — full of 1960s-era guerrillas, community organizers, academics and radicals — “finds itself perplexed by the revolt in its midst.”

After all, hadn’t they been good socialists, shoveling pork to the poor, protecting local industries from foreign “predators,” employing bureaucrats and taxing “the rich”? Yes, they did, and the result is a nation awash in corruption, angry at special interests, poorer from protectionism and beset by high taxes.

Now the people are marching. And the Workers’ Party (PT) philosophy of rule by special interests is at least one reason why.

Brazil’s rulers have been widely praised by everyone from Bill Clinton to Hugo Chavez for their handouts to the poor, in the name of “social justice.” But they have done very little to create opportunity to enable poor people to get off handouts and earn a living.

What’s more, they’ve forced others to pay for it and live with its bad effects, leaving all sides pretty angry.

Read the whole thing. Socialism doesn’t work, no matter what they call it, and no matter what the socialists tell you. All it does is spread misery, with the exception of those who are politically connected.